Carl B. Spaeth; Stanford Law Dean
Carl B. Spaeth, dean of the Stanford Law School from 1946 to 1962 who founded the first of the school’s three law reviews while broadening its economic base, has died of pneumonia at a convalescent home in Northern California.
He was 83 when he died Sunday in Menlo Park after a series of illnesses.
A noted internationalist, Spaeth also served in the State Department from 1940 until 1946, when he went to Stanford.
He also was general counsel of the Venezuelan Development Corp. in Caracas.
As a Rhodes scholar, he earned degrees at Oxford University in England before pursuing further studies at Yale. He taught at Temple, Northwestern and Yale before becoming an assistant secretary of state for American republics affairs.
He was only 39 when he was named dean at Stanford. One of his first acts was to found the student-edited Stanford Law Review. He also established endowment and annual funds for the law school.
In 1952-53, Spaeth took a leave from Stanford to serve as director of overseas activities for the Ford Foundation, where he helped develop rural and industrial assistance programs in India, Pakistan and Burma.
Survivors include his wife, Sheila; a son, Carl, and a daughter, Laurin.
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